New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia ... Sun, IBM ink OS agreement ... Bug hits Skype network

HIGHLIGHTS

News: New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia
News: Sun, IBM ink OS agreement
News: Diebold fails to sell e-voting subsidiary
News: Bug hits Skype Internet telephone network
News: iPod woes could leave executives singing prison blues
Opinion: The rush of tools to the hand
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Google mistakes own blog for spam, deletes it


NEWS UPDATES

New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia
A word of caution about editing entries "anonymously" in Wikipedia: a tool has been developed that can show who made the changes.

Sun, IBM ink OS agreement
Longtime rivals IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have signed an agreement related to operating systems technologies, the two companies said Wednesday.

Diebold fails to sell e-voting subsidiary
Diebold Inc. has been unable to sell its electronic voting subsidiary, and has slashed its full-year revenue expectations for Diebold Election Systems due to controversy surrounding e-voting security, the company said Thursday.

Bug hits Skype Internet telephone network
A software bug has affected Skype Ltd.'s peer-to-peer network, preventing users in some parts of the world from logging on to its widely used VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service.

iPod woes could leave executives singing prison blues
Nine executives at Inventec Appliances Corp. could face jail time for failing to reveal plans by Apple Inc. to reduce iPod orders to the company in a timely manner.

NSA spying program argued at court hearing
A U.S. appeals court agreed on Wednesday to weigh a government motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored phone lines and e-mails without a warrant, but judges asked a government lawyer tough questions over the issue.


OPINION

The rush of tools to the hand
By Sean McGrath, ITworld.com

I think there is a universal law that goes something like this:

The degree to which information technology can
truly help problem X is inversely proportional
to the enthusiasm with which the average young
software developer approaches the problem.

Maybe "universal law" is a bit high here? How about "rule of thumb"? Yes, that's better. Example? Personal productivity. "How hard can it be?", says the typical enthusiastic young software developer. "You have meetings, calendar appointments, notes, TODO lists, contact list, task lists, expense recording...Just a whole bunch of lists really. How hard can it be to get a computer application to manage that sort of thing?"

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT news audio update
U.S. court to consider dismissal of wiretapping suit ... Xandros licenses messaging protocols from Microsoft ... SingTel to get stake in Taiwan's Far EasTone

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Google mistakes own blog for spam, deletes it
Readers of Google's Custom Search Blog were handed a bit of a surprise last week when the Web site was temporarily removed from the blogosphere. The problem? Google had mistakenly identified its own blog as a spammer's site and deleted it.

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